is an artist, with all the faults and all the lovable virtues of his kind. A week ago I was a teacher, holding one of the most desirable positions in the city schools. We met just six months ago, two of the most unsuited people who could be thrown together. And now we are married! Next week we begin housekeeping in a dear little apartment near Dicky's studio.
Dicky has insisted that I give up my work, and against all my convictions I have yielded to his wishes. But on my part I have stipulated that I must be permitted to do the housework of our nest, with the occasional help of a laundress. I will be no parasite wife who neither helps her husband in or out of the home. But the little devils must be busy laughing just now. I, who have hardly hung up my own nightgown for years, and whose knowledge of housekeeping is mightily near zero, am to try to make home happy and comfortable for an artist! Poor Dicky!
I don't know what has come to me. I worship Dicky. He sweeps me off my feet with his love, his vivid personality overpowers my more commonplace self, but through all the bewildering intoxication of my engagement and marriage a little mocking devil, a cool, cynical, little devil, is constantly whispering in my ear: "You fool, you fool, to imagine you can escape unhappiness! There is no such thing as a happy marriage!"
Dicky has just 'phoned up from the smoking room to ask me if my hour isn't up. How his voice clears away all the miasma of my miserable thoughts! Please God, Dicky, I am going to lock up all my old ideas in the most unused closet of my brain, and try my best to be a good wife to you! I will be happy! I will! I WILL!
II
THE FIRST QUARREL
"I'll give you three guesses, Madge." Dicky stood just inside the door of the living room, holding an immense parcel carefully wrapped. His hat was on the back of his head, his eyes shining, his whole face aglow with boyish mischief.
"It's for you, my first housekeeping present, that is needed in every well regulated family," he burlesqued boastfully, "but you are not to see it until we have something to eat, and you have guessed what it is."
"I know it is something lovely, dear," I replied sedately, "but come to your dinner. It is getting cold."
Dicky looked a trifle hurt as he followed me to the dining room. I knew what he expected—enthusiastic curiosity and a demand for the immediate opening of the parcel, I can imagine the pretty enthusiasm, the caresses with which almost any other woman would have greeted a bridegroom of two weeks with his first present.
But it's simply impossible for me to gush. I cannot express emotion of any kind with the facility of most women. I worshipped my mother, but I rarely kissed her or expressed my love for her in words. My love for Dicky terrifies me sometimes, it is so strong, but I cannot go up to him and offer him an unsolicited kiss or caress. Respond to his caresses, yes! but offer them of my own volition, never! There is something inside me that makes it an absolute impossibility.
"What's the menu, Madge? The beef again?"
Dicky's tone was mildly quizzical, his smile mischievous, but I flushed hotly. He had touched a sore spot. The butcher had brought me a huge slab of meat for my first dinner when I had timidly ordered "rib roast," and with the aid of my mother's cook book and my own smattering of cooking, my sole housewifely accomplishment, I had been trying to disguise it for subsequent meals.
"This is positively its last appearance on any stage," I assured him, trying to be gay. "Besides, it's a casserole, with rice, and I defy you to detect whether the chief ingredient be fish, flesh or fowl."
"Casserole is usually my pet aversion," Dicky said solemnly. Look not on the casserole when it is table d'hote, is one of the pet little proverbs in my immediate set. Too much like Spanish steak and the other good chances for ptomaines. But if you made it I'll tackle it—if you have to call the ambulance in the next half-hour."
"Dicky, you surely do not think I would use meat that was doubtful, do you?" I asked, horror-stricken. "Don't eat it. Wait and I'll fix up some eggs for you."
Dicky rose stiffly, walked slowly around to my side of the table, and gravely tapped my head in imitation of a phrenologist.
"Absolute depression where the bump called 'sense of humor' ought to be. Too bad! Pretty creature, too. Cause her lots of trouble, in the days to come," he chanted solemnly.
Then he bent and kissed me. "Don't be a goose, Madge," he admonished, "and never, never take me seriously. I don't know the meaning of the word. Come on, let's eat the thing-um bob. I'll bet it's delicious."
He uncovered the casserole and regarded the steaming contents critically. "Smells scrumptious," he announced. "What's in the other? Potatoes au gratin?" as he took off the cover of the other serving dish. "Good! One of my favorites."
He piled a liberal portion on any plate and helped himself as generously. He ate heartily of both dishes, ignoring or not noticing that I scarcely touched either dish.
For I was fast lapsing into one of the moods which my little mother used to call my "morbid streaks" and which she had vainly tried to cure ever since I was a tiny girl.
Dicky didn't like my cooking! He was only pretending! Dicky was disappointed in the way I received the announcement of his present! Probably he soon would find me wanting in other things.
As I took our plates to the kitchen and brought on a lettuce and tomato salad with a mayonnaise dressing over which I had toiled for an hour, I was trying hard to choke back the tears.
When I brought on the baked apples which I had prepared with especial care for dessert, Dick gave them one glance which to my oversensitive mind looked disparaging. Then he pushed back his chair.
"Don't believe I want any dessert today. The rest of the dinner was so good I ate too much of it. Eat yours and I'll undo your surprise."
"Whatever in the world?" I began as Dicky lifted the lid and revealed a big Angora cat. Then my voice changed. "Why, Dicky, you don't mean—" But Dicky was absorbed in lifting the cat out.
"Isn't she a beauty?" he said admiringly. But I was almost into the dining room.
"I suppose she is," I replied faintly, "but surely you do not intend her for me?"
"Why not?" Dicky's tone was sharper than I had ever heard it. He set the cat down on the floor and she walked over to me. I pushed her away gently with my foot as I replied:
"Because I dislike cats—intensely. Besides, you know cats are so unsanitary, always carrying disease—"
"Oh, get out of it, Madge," Dicky interrupted. "Forget that scientific foolishness you absorbed when you were school ma'aming. Besides, this cat is a thoroughbred, never been outside the home where she was born till now. Do you happen to know what this gift you are tossing aside so nonchalantly would have cost if it hadn't been given me by a dear friend? A cool two hundred, that's all. It seems to me you might try to get over your prejudices, especially when I tell you that I am very fond of cats and like to see them around."
Dicky's voice held a note of appeal, but I chose to ignore it. My particular little devil must have sat at my elbow.
"I am sorry," I said coldly, "but really, I do not see why it is any more
